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Monday, October 31, 2011

in clover: happy halloween

I love Halloween. I have wonderfully fuzzy memories of trick or treating with friends and cousins. It was so exciting to be outside after dark. I loved wearing what my grandmother called a "false face."

I remember coming home and my mother taking a break from watching scary movies in order to "inspect" my candy...I still think some of that candy was not so much suspect as it was tasty!

When I moved into my own apartment, I planned my first Trick or Treat night with great anticipation. Unfortunately, the large apartment complex (mostly young singles) didn't attract even a single trick or treater.

By the next year I had moved to an older home in a well established, charmingly shabby neighborhood. I don't know how many bags of candy I went through! So jealous were my friends who were still living in apartment complexes, that they began to join me. We'd share a pizza and hand out candy until we ran out. When I started dating Michael, I knew he had real spouse potential when he enthusiastically helped me carve multiple jack o' lanterns.

Over the years, our Halloween tradition grew to include friends and their children, food and drink and eery Halloween decor.

Our style is "Vintage Spooky" rather than gory.

This morning, I took a walk down memory lane...here are some images from Halloweens past....

For entertainment we have had treasure hunts, pumpkin carving, apple bobbing but this particular year a mysterious fortune teller showed up at the door!
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Toddler c and pumpkins...

Michael still enjoys pumpkin carving...

This Max costume, from Where The Wild Things Are, was a gift from my sister. Both C's...big and little...had a ball wearing it!

It was exciting, the year Big C chose a Spiderman costume, as I myself had masqueraded as Spiderman, many moons ago....I added the spider garlands that year...

This year little c chose a pink and white kitty cat costume and we added the Happy Haunting banner to the front door...

For adults we've had several versions of haunted bars. One year we served "Boos" in a large vintage French jug and paid homage to the movie, The Shining.

Another year's version featured Poison Pomegranate cocktails. I made the sign from a piece of cardboard and a fine tipped sharpie...did my best to make my handwriting look "spidery." My favorite part was singing the edges of the cardboard with a lighter. Don't bother polishing the silver! It looks much more spooky to leave it tarnished.

This year we had a ladybug and a knight in shining armor...

Big C made this paperbag pumpkin when he was three...and it is one of my most prized possessions!

Cinderella on the move....

For Halloween 2011, circumstances did not allow us to throw a big bash but both c's told me that they really wanted me to "haunt our house" so out came the cheese cloth, the bats, the rats, the ravens....and candy corn, the spooky candles and the spider web table cloths.

New this year was an owl with real feathers and amber colored glass eyes....

A witch's work table....

And a garland I made from old skeleton keys and black velvet ribbon...

The poison pomegranate martinis magically reappeared!

With less than two hours to go before Trick or Treating begins, I have to whip up a little Halloween supper...time to google recipes using zombie eyeballs and spider parts!